City’s Bronco all-stars hoping for good fortune in Laredo

Published 3:00 am, Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Up until now, the Deer Park Bronco Maroon All-Stars have reserved their summer competition for Houston-area only teams.

That all changes starting Thursday when the team begins play in the all-important South Zone Tournament way down south in Laredo.

Coach Whittemore and his crew will be asked to play their best brand of ball if they wish to earn a trip to the coveted Bronco World Series in August.

An unanswered question will be whether or not the team can adjust to a foreign ballfield. Most if not all of their contests up to now have been played at the city’s new Ruth Minchen Athletic Complex and the diamonds of Saddler or Lee fields.

Dimension-wise, those fields are large for 12-year-old hitters. In other words, the Maroon All-Stars haven’t hit any over-the-fence shots, but that doesn’t mean they’re not a good-hitting team. It will be interesting to see what the dimensions will be for the fields in Laredo. Chances are, they’ll be smaller.

In three tournaments, the team has scored over 100 runs. At the Coast Region event two weeks ago that led to the South Zone Tournament berth, the team scored 44 runs, while only allowing six.

Leadoff batter Graycen Adrian may be small in size but he’s an excellent contact hitter and has good speed. He’ll steal second and third base in a heartbeat if the catcher isn’t much of a threat to throw a runner out.

At the other end is Nicholas Gonzalez, the team’s biggest youngster, who has caught fire of late. In a 13-6 win over Conroe at Coast Region, he drove in four RBIs. He’s swinging the bat with more authority and that can only mean good things in Laredo.

But obviously for those two to do some damage, the others have to be fairly productive. Kaden Harvey, Dalton Burke, Lucas Lavender and Wyatt Woodall have the potential to be good table setters.

On the mound, Burke is the likely starting pitcher for Game 1. He appears to have the greatest velocity on his pitches with decent control. The coaching staff has plenty of other options but they’ll all have to do one thing in common and that’s keep the walks to a bare minimum.

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When the pitching and defense hasn’t been there, scares have arisen. During the district tournament, the Maroon All-Stars eked out an 11-8 win over Pasadena, closing with a 7-5 triumph over the Katy Lookouts.